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"Kick Ass" movie review

I wasn't expecting much from a movie with a name like "Kick-Ass," but it turned out to be exactly that—kick-ass! The script was funny, there were tons of incredible action scenes, and the movie moved along at such a fast pace that it made its 1:49 run time feel like half that.

Relative newcomer Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a nerdy high schooler and avid comic book reader, who comes up with the idea that regular people can be superheroes too. He orders himself a green wetsuit from the internet, and his new alter ego, "Kick-Ass," is born. Things are kind of rough for Dave at first, but soon a video of him fighting crime on YouTube makes him famous.

Dave's equally dorky friends, Clark Duke ("Hot Tub Time Machine") and Evan Peters (TV's "Invasion"), have no idea that he is, in fact, Kick-Ass, and neither does the girl Aaron likes, Katie, until he reveals himself to her. The local mobster in town, however, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, "Sherlock Holmes"), thinks that Kick-Ass is behind the recent murders of his henchmen, when in fact it is really the superheroes Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and his preteen daughter, Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz, TV's "Dirty Sexy Money"), taking revenge on Frank since he framed Big Daddy and got him sent to jail many years ago. Soon Frank's son, Christopher Mintz-Plasse ("Superbad"), gets in on the superhero game - he is "Red Mist," complete with an awesome red convertible - in order to help his father take down Kick-Ass, and the movie progresses from there.

Johnson and Mintz-Plasse are hilarious as superheroes, since they are such geeks—Mintz-Plasse is pretty much typecast as the geeky kid—and "Hit Girl" is precocious; her "Big Daddy," a former cop, has taught her everything he knows about guns and fighting. Mark Strong has a great role as the hitman, and one of the funniest lines in the movie is when he tells Hit Girl that "[he] wishes [his] son was more like her." Nicholas Cage doesn't have many lines (he's mostly seen while shooting people) and even though he's a little screwed up to let his 11-year-old daughter play superheroes with him, he obviously loves her. Xander Berkeley (formerly of TV's "24") also has a nice small role as a police detective who is in cahoots with the mobsters.

I would say Yes, definitely go see this movie. The ending scenes of this movie have some of the best action sequences I have ever seen, not to mention some of the most artsy. You should probably be forewarned that there is an extensive strobe light scene which was a little disorienting, but very cool to watch. Also, there is a lot of bloodshed and murder, but they are done so fast and so artistically, in some cases, that it really didn't bother me. I went to see the movie with my mom, and she wasn't a fan, but I thought it was very well done. The film's ending sets things up for a sequel (tentatively titled "Balls to the Wall"). The movie will be in theaters April 16, and I highly encourage you to go see it—it's the best action movie I've seen in quite a while.

Comments

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A few months ago, I was headed to the AMC Forum (Sterling Heights area) and I wanted to know the best way to get home from there. My phone kept stalling ... and stalling ... and then the Maps app crashed! Gah! I was extremely frustrated. I was finally able to re-start the phone and get safely home, but it TOOK. SO. LONG. Had the Maps app worked the fir…

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I've written these past two years about Bookstock, a huge used book & media sale that takes place at Laurel Park Place, in Livonia, and it's returning again this year, from Sunday, 4/22 through Sunday, 4/29.Read more about the event over at my book blog! I was finally able to check it out last year, and they had a large mix of books and media (including DVDs, Blu-rays, and records).To learn more about Bookstock, click hereto visit my book blog, or visit their official site here.